Then frankly that is a crazy system and you can see why a company would be so keen to try every avenue to increase revenue - if indeed its them that pockets the income.

The company I work for has weekend call-out cover for several of the large supermarket chains and for all of them the system that THEY adopt is a "voucher" system where they pay a small retainer for 52 weekends worth of engineer standby time and then any call outs are charged at one "voucher" each, the cost of the voucher being the bit that is negotiated every three years.

It suits all partners, the supermarkets don't pay for anything that they don't use (no supermarket likes doing that) and we only charge when we work and don't have to stick our neck on the line with guestimates as to when we'll be used.

The venal, leaching bastads are no different to the legion of ambulance chasers. They see an opportunity to get money from a "free" fund, when in reality all that is happening is the majority of insured drivers will see their premiums increase to cover such eventualities.

I think there is an obvious issue of potential scam billing going on here - charging for cleaning up an oil leak when there was none for example or blatant over charging but what I don't understand is why they are allowed to charge at all.

Who has legislated that that these companies have a right to chase motorists for money?

This isn't an issue of should motorists pay for any damage caused in an accident or not. That is a different debate.

I'd be interested to see how many of these such cases actually go to court. It sounds very much like the sort of "civil recovery" schemes that a lot of retailers us to claim "losses" back from suspected shoplifters (where the items listed in such claims include CCTV, security guards and other things that would be in the store anyway).

In reality, there is nothing to stop anyone asking anyone to pay an "invoice" (it's how private parking companies do business) but if the driver ignores the invoices, it is up to the claimant to prove to a court that the amounts claimed are justified and a true reflection of losses (which is why most private parking firms don't take people to court - it's hard to justify that somebody overstaying for 10mins in a free car park has caused £100 of "losses"icon_wink.gif. Anyway, I digress....

Oi, leave ambulance chasers alone

Well, the article states that
"The Highways Agency says when repairs are needed after a breakdown or collision it is not right that the costs should be borne by the taxpayer and therefore they or their contractors will seek to recover the cost of repairs from insurance companies or individuals where appropriate."

Going back to my original example, if you smash into my garden wall, I can claim for the damage, and so if you smash into the Highways Agency's wall, ditto. If the HA has a contract with some company to repair walls, then I would agree on the face of it there is no way that company could make a claim. It isn't an insurance company, and so the HA's rights can't be subrogated to it, and it has not had any of its own property damaged, and can't claim for pure "economic loss".

This suggests that there must be some form of legislation that permits the charge, such as that which makes you liable for towing and storage charges if the police have your car recovered from an accident.


of course it is, maybe from a different angle, but exactly the same issue.


Yes do - tied to the barrier to await hopefully frequent collisions.